the thoughts, ponderings, meditations and musings of a girl who spends most of her life out of her comfort zone

Tag Archives: support

$50. What is that worth? Its not a trick question. The value of anything is what people are willing to do for it. If you make $10/hour, $50 is pretty much a full-day of work. If you make $100/hour, its only 30 minutes, and probably isn’t as valuable. What if you make $2/day? Then you’re looking at almost a full month of work. $50 is very quickly worth a lot more.

13. A number that is misunderstood. There’s even a real phobia – triskaidekaphobia. Elevators don’t have a number 13. Most high-rises skip from the 12th to the 14th floor. In Jewish culture it is the age of maturity when boys and girls demonstrate they are becoming men and women. 13 is just the between of 12 and 14.

I am at the intersection of 13 and $50. I’m thirteen $50/month supporters away from being “fully funded” to return to Kenya. For me that $50/month means being able to pay my health insurance bill, a third of my monthly grocery bill, a pair of glasses, a trip to the dentist, internet accessibility… Each $50 is very precious and appreciated.

So I’m in the US ‘til sometime in January. And yes, praise the interwebs, there is high-speed internet everywhere, well except in the car. Though if you include web on the phone, its even there. Yet I have not been blogging… why? Well as my social media guru friends have told me, sometimes you just have to really participate in life, not just report on it. So there you have it – I have been participating in life.

There’s been flights from Nairobi to New York and meeting new friends from Australia along the way. Surprise attendance at Lighthouse my first Saturday back, and enjoying everyone doing double-takes at my appearance. A road-trip to see family for Thanksgiving with lots of hugs, great conversations, and too much food.

And now I find myself sitting in a coffee shop in Lancaster, PA. After meetings at the office, I have free time to sit and ponder why I’m here at this time. I didn’t expect to be here now, my plans had me in Nairobi until March. Yet circumstances conspired to bring me home early. A big reason is fundraising.

Its time to think outside of the box… if traditional missionary fund-raising isn’t working, what will? How do I make up the deficit of $700 per month? I don’t know – feel free to message me with ideas if you’ve got ‘em. Living internationally presents some interesting challenges that I wouldn’t have in the USA. I can’t just go out and get a job at McD’s in Nairobi (there is no McD in Nairobi) or at the local grocery store, or temp in an office at last minute notice.

So I’m here in the US without a return ticket to Nairobi, yet that’s what I want to do more than anything. Go back to my friends, church, community and job in sunny warm Nairobi. To be able to tweet about visiting slums, distributing food to famine victims, and helping people start small business to change their communities.

Feel free to hit the “donate” button over on the right if you want to be part of the process or click on the about page for more details on how to partner.

Like this:

“For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”

Many of us have heard this poem/nursery rhyme. Like most nursery rhymes it was created to teach a lesson. Literary critics more profound than myself (well at least according to wikipedia) say this rhyme was probably written to teach children about logic and consequences. Its an important lesson for kids to know that their actions will cause something else to happen. As I used to tell my little brother, “positive actions = positive consequences, negative actions = negative consequences” – and yes, this was usually as I was talking to him after a time-out.

No one likes talking about negative consequences. We truly desire to believe that everyone in the world is good at heart and will always act in the best interest of others, living everyday by the golden rule. REALITY CHECK, this is not Cinderella’s castle or Snow White’s enchanted forest. People are not inherently good – in fact we’re told that “the heart is deceitful above all things and without cure” So as much as you and I want to believe in the good, we need to be real.

Currently, we are experiencing a consequence to all the negative events in the world – donor fatigue! With so many disasters happening around the world – natural and man-made, and every charity filling the airwaves, billboards, and social media, its no wonder. We’re overwhelmed at the enormity of the need. We ask ourselves “How can the little bit that I give make a difference?” We decide that our “little bit” can’t make a difference and leave it up to the celebrities and CEO’s who can write the six and seven-figure checks.

Yet, statistics tell us that it is those who earn less than $20,000 per year who give the most to charity (4.6%). In fact, its proven that the more you earn the less likely you are to give your money away. Check out this article for all the details. The trend goes down the higher you go until you get above $100,000 when it gets back up to 3.1%.

How does this work? Because when you put together all those “little bits”, it becomes a lot. Just like a hand can’t tell a gallbladder, “I don’t need you” or a foot tell an elbow “you’re unnecessary”, we can’t write off each other. Change happens when we all work together. Look at the current events – why do you think that the “99%” on Wall Street are impacting others around the globe? How else did the “Tea Party” become a de-facto sub-division of the Republican party in American Politics? By working together.

As a missionary I’d rather not have to “ask” for funding. My friend and prayer missionary at IHOP, Randy Bohlender, agrees. Yet ask we do, because it allows people like you to partner in the mission, to gain heavenly reward from an earthly action, and see lives changed. So if you’d like to participate with me in changing nations, developing transformational leaders, and seeing people find a destiny – click on the “Donate” button on the right or send a check to DOVE Mission International “Kenya A” – 11 Tollgate Rd. Lititz, PA 17543. And if you want to really make a difference, skip a couple of lattes a month and send the $10 monthly.

You CAN make a difference. You DO make a difference. “Because of supporters, the missionary stayed”